Who knew that I’d step away for a few days and you all would be arguing about Methodist statistics?
I’ll answer any question I can but I’m not familiar enough with SBC stats to do a fair comparison. What Sandy says seems accurate to me but I’m not nearly as familiar now with how the SBC tracks membership as how the UMC does.
As said above, the UMC is an international Church. Yes, you can get stats for inside and outside the US. The UMC is world wide and not just an US institution.
As a world wide institution the UMC is growing. Membership loss is largely in the US. Some of the best analysis I’ve seen suggests that membership loss among white UMCers is in big part a function of birth rate. I see few anglo UMCer with more than two children. But as our denomination’s membership has always been strongest in small towns, farming families used to be much larger. So churches complain that the children’s programs over all have shrunk faster than the adult programming. The UMC is growing very quickly in Africa and South Korea.
We do keep pretty accurate statistics because our connectional nature demands it. I have reports on membership, baptisms, etc. that I am required to turn into the District Superintendent every year and I’m responsible for the accuracy.
I’m not sure what all the statistical data has to do with the main point of the thread. But, I hope you all had a blessed Christmas!